Encouragement

I like to encourage people to pursue their dreams and their desires (within reason) and offer help where I think I can and should do so.  Whenever I see someone with a talent even when it is something that I would like to be able to do I still encourage them.  I don't mind when people do better than me because I understand no matter how well you do there will always be someone who does better.  It's unrealistic to believe that you can be #1 and stay there.  Even the Forbes rich list isn't set in stone, with Bill Gates and Carlos Slim often exchanging places at the top the conclusion you can draw is that sometimes you're ahead and sometimes you're behind and that's okay either way because that's life.

What matters most is where you are going (or where you want to go) and what you are doing to get there.  We all have our strengths and our weaknesses and we often try to pursue these as careers or at the very least we try to capitalise on them.  Confidence itself however has become something of a commodity in society today with those who possess it in apparent exultance being the ones who make it the furthest.

The question is as with all commodities, does the person who has it, need it?  The inevitability with all commodities is to reach a point where price rises higher than those who actually need it can afford.  This is called an economy of scale and an example of such would be insurance.  Those who need it most are those who could not afford to replace their belongings, yet they are also the least likely to have it as it's still quite expensive.  On the other hand those who need it least are those who could easily pay to replace all of their belongings, yet despite the lack of need, their affluence leads then to be the group most likely to have insurance.

If confidence is a commodity then the question becomes "Who needs it?" - which has an obvious answer, those with the least confidence need it the most, yet they are often the last people who others direct their encouragement towards.  Instead they choose to direct it at celebrities, and popular personalities, in an attempt to encourage them further, but this harkens back to insurance, just as those who are richest have it most, here too those who have the most confidence are the ones who receive the most encouragement.